Posted on July 15, 2026July 15, 2026 by Dale Phillips The $75 Guitar Challenge The $75 Guitar Challenge by Doug Hunt and Mark French Originally published in American Lutherie #142, 2021 Mark: A couple years ago, I was walking around a big home store and started to wonder whether it would be possible to build a guitar only from things I could buy there. Obviously, they didn’t sell tuners, fretwire, or truss rods. However, I thought it might be possible if one had those three things. I decided that, given those parts, it might be possible to make a guitar with $75 to spend at the home store. Thinking it might be an interesting challenge, I suggested the idea to Doug Hunt. Doug and I have been guitar-making friends for years, having met as part of a project aiming to teach technical subjects to high school students through guitar making. (Check it out at guitarbuilding.org.) He was interested, though not looking for one more thing to do at the time. A while later, he suggested that a better idea would be to start with a budget of $75 that could be spent anywhere (he’s a big fan of eBay, as it happens). As long as the money could be spent anywhere, he thought that it might be possible to do the whole instrument for $75. Over some months of occasionally revisiting the idea, we did a little negotiating and settled on the following rules: Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on May 12, 2026May 13, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Rick Turner Meet the Maker: Rick Turner by Jonathon Peterson Originally published in American Lutherie #64, 2000 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 One of the great pleasures of my job here at the Guild is that I get to meet and talk with luthiers I’ve admired from afar. As the 1999 Healdsburg Guitar Festival was winding down, I approached Rick Turner and asked if he would be willing to be interviewed for this journal. Rick’s name will be familiar from his work with the Alembic company and the Grateful Dead; from his writing in American Lutherie, Guitar Player, and other magazines; and from his attendance at various instrument shows and conventions, including our own. I first heard him speak at the 1980 GAL Convention in San Francisco and have been a great admirer ever since. Rick graciously agreed, and we sat on the veranda outside the display hall and talked while the last tables were being folded and put away. We were the very last ones to leave. Rick spoke about the winding path of his career, the rock-and-roll world of the ’60s and ’70s, his approach to pickup and instrument design, and his current work, which includes a totally cool acoustic steel string and his Renaissance series of “amplicoustic” guitars. It was so much fun! Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 16, 2026January 17, 2026 by Dale Phillips Harvey Thomas and the Infernal Music Machine Harvey Thomas and the Infernal Music Machine by Tim Olsen Originally published in American Lutherie #11, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume 1, 2000 Remember what the term “Japanese guitar” used to mean, back when beatniks roamed the earth and Elvis was still kinda nasty? The Beatles hadn’t landed and I was in the third grade when my big brother Jim brought home a brand new Japanese guitar. Loosely modeled after a classic, it was already caving in from the load of its steel strings. You don’t see them like this anymore, man. Painted-on binding, decal rosette, door skin luan plywood, basswood (or worse) neck, nice sharp ends on those rough brass frets. I was totally fascinated! But the word fascination found new meaning a year later when my even bigger brother Dick came home from college with what might as well have been the Messiah Strad. It was a very plain, small bodied New York era Epiphone archtop with a badly repaired crack running the full length of the soundboard, and he had bought it cheap in a pawn shop. The hand of mortal man never created such perfection. This was a gift from the angels! Oh, the lovely dissonances that it spoke as I whanged it with a juice glass slide! When Dick was begged, he would strum “Who Put the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder.” Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 28, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips On-Board Preamps On-Board Preamps by Bob Meltz Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #158, 1980 Seeing that I, like other luthiers, enjoy the finer things in life (i.e. food, clothing, shelter), it is always a pleasure to find something that a) provides the luthier with a good return on his investment in time and materials, and b) provides the customer with something useful at a reasonable price. Such is the case with this little tidbit. It happens that most of my clientele play electric instruments and I have implanted preamps in dozens of these instruments with universally good results. It seems that most electric guitarists playing rock, fusion, or contemporary jazz are endlessly searching for ways to provide them with the sound of small, overdriven tube-type amps. The most common device used to accomplish this is the “distortion box” as made by a number of companies. The disadvantages of this type of device are numerous: a clumsy box sitting on the floor with cords dangling at the feet of the player, added noise from all but the most expensive units, line loss when the effect is bypassed, etc. For all but the people who are looking to totally “raunch out”, the on-board preamp is a viable, indeed preferable, alternative. Although it provides practically no distortion of its own, the added output is enough to overdrive the preamp stage of almost any guitar amp. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on June 6, 2024May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Direct to Digital Pickup Questions: Direct to Digital Pickup by Brian Stewart Originally published in American Lutherie #76, 2003 Joel A. Anderson, Port Allegheny, PA asks: I have a computer program called Finale for Guitar. It permits me to enter notes and chords from the guitar directly into the computer by using the keyboard. I am looking for a MIDI pickup for my guitar so I can play a note or a chord and it will go directly into the computer in a digital format. Do you know of such a pickup? Brian Stewart of Blue Springs, MO answers: Roland manufactures the GK-2AH for guitar, the GK-2B for bass, and the GK-KIG-GT for permanent installation into a guitar. I have played a Godin Multiac nylon with the RMC electronics MIDI pickup through a Roland GR-33 guitar processor that worked great. The web addresses are: www.rolandus.com; www.california.com/~bwagon/rmc2.htm. ◆
